Inglis, Elsie Maud (1864–1917)

British physician and surgeon. Born in Naini Tal, India, in 1864; died at Newcastle Upon Tyne, England, on November 26, 1917; studied medicine at the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women, the Edinburgh Medical College, and the Glasgow Royal Infirmary.

Elsie Inglis was born in India in 1864. When her father retired from his job in 1878, the Inglis family returned to Scotland and settled in Edinburgh. Inglis pursued her medical education at the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women, founded by Sophia Jex-Blake , the Edinburgh Medical College, and the Glasgow Royal Infirmary. After qualifying as a doctor, Inglis was appointed to a teaching post at the New Hospital for Women in London, by its founder Elizabeth Garrett Anderson .

Inglis then returned to Edinburgh and began her practice; she was associated with the Edinburgh Bruntsfield Hospital and Dispensary and also saw private patients. A staunch supporter of women's causes, Inglis was appalled by the lack of facilities for women and the prejudice against women doctors. In response, she established a free maternity hospital for women and children of the city's slums (1901), staffed entirely by women, and also founded the Scottish Women's Suffrage Federation (1906).

At the onset of World War I, Inglis raised money and established the Scottish Field Hospital, which she staffed entirely with women. When the British War Office refused her request for women doctors to serve on the Western front, the Women's Suffrage Federation came to her aid, helping her to organize field hospitals and send them out through the French and Belgian Red Cross. By 1915, the Scottish Women's Hospital Unit had established an Auxiliary Hospital with 200 beds in the 13th-century Royaumont

Abbey. Inglis' team included Evalina Haverfield, Ishobel Ross , and Cicely Hamilton .

In April 1915, Inglis began to establish field hospitals in a Serbian unit on the war-torn Balkan front to battle a typhoid epidemic. During the German and Austrian invasion (1915–16), her hospital was captured by the Austrians, and she was imprisoned for a time. British authorities sought the help of American diplomats to negotiate her release.

In August 1916, the London Suffrage Society financed Inglis and 80 women to support Serbian soldiers fighting in Russia. Haverfield was recruited as head of transport. Inglis remained active, serving in Braila, Galatz, and Reni, until the withdrawal of the Serbs in 1917. In her memoirs, Florence Farmborough wrote of a visit with Inglis at the hospital at Podgaytsy. Ishobel Ross also kept a diary of her wartime experiences. "Mrs. Inglis and I went up behind the camp and through the trenches," Ross wrote on February 15, 1917.

It was so quiet with just the sound of the wind whistling through the tangles of wire. What a terrible sight it was to see the bodies half buried and all the place strewn with

bullets, letter cases, gas masks, empty shells and daggers. We came across a stretch of field telephone too. It took us ages to break up the earth with our spades as the ground was so hard, but we buried as many bodies as we could. We shall have to come back to bury more as it is very tiring work.

Elsie Inglis was taken ill while in Russia and forced to travel back to England. She arrived at Newcastle Upon Tyne on November 25, but local doctors were unable to save her, and she died the following day. During the First World War, Inglis was responsible for 14 medical units serving in France, Serbia, Corsica, Salonika, Rumania, Russia, and Malta. These included doctors, nurses, cooks, ambulance drivers, orderlies, and relief workers. In Edinburgh, her name was commemorated for many years with the Elsie Inglis Maternity Hospital, though it is now closed.